I vote occasionally. Here are some things that would encourage me to vote more:

1. Ranked ballot voting, top 3 choices. This would shut everybody up. Now your vote counts.

2. Online/electronic absentee ballot. I'm lazy. So are most people.

3. Transparency and availability of easy-to-read candidate data. Most of the time I don't know any of the people on the ballot. I want a brief overview of the candidate's stances on core issues as well as record of their past accomplishments. It would also be nice if potential conflicts of interest were listed.

4. Make voting-day a national holiday. If it's a part of the culture, it gains permanent respect. Quality voting is essential to our future. Take the day off? Sounds good to me!

Those were my thoughts, too, but it looks like the legislation has been corrected (or at least "clarified"), as it was, apparently, not intended to be used that way.

http://phys.org/news/2013-10-nasa-chinese-scientists-boycott.html

I'm not going to lie, our "rivalry" with China kind of worries me sometimes. I wasn't around for the Cold War really, but it seems like we're heading for a second Cold War if we continue to restrict, contradict, spy on and threaten each other. It is undeniable that China is on the rise. They have a quarter of the worlds population. I don't want to start the first half of the century being hated by the Chinese (and everybody else for that matter).

I'm posting this from a hotel with pay-for internet access. I'm paying about $200 a night for two beds (so not too expensive, but expensive for me). As soon as I saw that the internet costs money here, I thought to myself, well shit, I won't be coming to the Hilton again. So yes, I would imagine that it does affect the amount of customers they get, but apparently not enough for them to lose money on charging for access. Fortunately the conference that I'm attending is paying for my internet.

As a side note, they don't offer any free breakfast either. :(

[/rant]

I find your sentiment absolutely discussing!!

I dunno much about the Volt's angry slashdot history, but It seems like a pretty feasible way to transition to an electric car if you're worried about road trips.

Every time I pass one, it catches my eye. I'd say it's right up there in looks with the Model S, which also, in my opinion, looks attractive. If I had the money to choose between those two cars, I'd have to think about it.

Optical trapping can sometimes make use of radiation pressure, but that's generally not how you optically trap a particle, nor is that how they did it. Radiation pressure is characterized by absorption and reflection (like tennis balls hitting a wall). To trap a particle, you use refraction (when modeling the system with ray optics).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_pressure

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_tweezers

The change in index of refraction between water (or air) and your particle causes the light rays to "change direction" as they enter and leave the particle. There is a net momentum transferred to the particle in the direction of the focus of the laser beam, thus trapping the particle at the focus.

I'm not an expert with all this technology and stuff, but it seems that this does not "violate" net neutrality. I was under that the impression that net neutrality is concerned with the content of data sent/received, not with company policies that limit large amounts of traffic (or servers or whatever), regardless of the type of data being sent through.

Of course, a company could violate net neutrality by banning specific servers or censoring information that they don't like, but I don't see how splitting up your "business" and "residential" service has anything to do with freedom of information. Can someone explain to me exactly why this is a violation of net neutrality? It sounds more to me like many of you are upset because of false advertisement, or even simply because you think something should be free when it's not.

As far as evilness goes... meh. Evil, to me, is synonymous to greed. And, to varying degrees, just about everybody in our country and every other country is greedy. It comes with the territory. ;)

I think you misinterpreted the use of "should" there. It's not that it should happen, as in it likely will happen, it's just we have an obligation to do it.

People have HEARD (and accept) that we're pumping too much CO2 into our atmosphere, but very few people have taken serious effort against it. As I'm sure many slashdotters would agree (hopefully I'm not stretching myself too far here), renewed discussion of fossil fuels in public forums, media and government needs to happen. Our population is large enough to affect an entire planet. Following our reckless impulses and immediate desires is NOT an option, and we should work [our asses off] to change that.

For example, if you're interested in physics, pick a section out of Halliday's Fundamentals of Physics PDF, read it, then later during another break take a look at an example or practice problem. Hell, practice the method of Loci memorization technique. You'll get something out of that if you stick with it.

Really, just pick anything you're interested in.

I won't explain it, as I don't feel like reading through all of it right now, but someone else is welcome to! And now it's easy to find.

Emission of pulse:

It's actually called Double optical Gating, not Grating, as the article called it. http://www.phys.ksu.edu/personal/chang/Chang-attoweb.pdf

Detection: Phase Retrieval by Omega Oscillation Filtering

http://www.creol.ucf.edu/research/publications/2859.pdf

I very much disagree. I like having a consistently large player pool with which to compare my play. Many of the people you play in online games have already gotten good enough to beat or compete with the best computer opponents. Facing a human player, in my experience, provides a new and unique challenge, even if you can't see their face.

There are also often large gaps in skill between friends that play games. The discrepancies between friends gets taken away when you play against a large player pool. Who cares if you're best at a game between 4 people? How about in the top 1% of 500,000 people?

I love to play with my friends, but I love it even more when we can play against an anonymous online multiplayer base. In CoD, for example, we can work together as a team and find a position together against incoming forces. It makes it even more real. Almost like real war.

I'm not sure what makes your challenges inspring and meaningful, and what makes mine soulless and pointless, but I have more fun with online multiplayer games than with games that don't connect. When I'm home alone late at night, and the house is dead silent - lonely even - there's something eerie about playing bots -- add the online part, and suddenly it fills the house with *just a little* more presence.

Be careful where you lump every gamer. There's a reason why many of these games actually have a

and why EA is willing to bet on it.

Couldn't they just give all of the teams a set of identical DNA (for instance, the teams unknowingly share the DNA of 10 individuals) and compare the sequenced genomes to get an idea of how accurate they are?